In recent years, clients have become ever more insistent in their demand that researchers deliver results in a way that engages the audience. Researchers can respond to this demand in a number of ways, including the use of storytelling, workshops, and data representations that are visually compelling. Anything that  helps engage people with research findings - what they mean, and what marketers should do as a result - is a good thing, but a recent experience of my own made me wonder if the need to tell stories is at odds with the need to present statistics. By writing this post I hope to explore the issue further.

Last week my post about research metrics and pre-testing drew Jacob Wright, senior strategist at Mother in London, into the debate. Kudos to Jacob for putting his viewpoint forward, even if I cannot agree with some of his assertions. But the real question is, why is he so convinced that pretesting is bad for creativity?

Thinking about the debate, it seems to me that Jacob’s commentary reflects a longstanding friction between researchers and advertisers that is as much due to mindset as methodology. It is one that I am familiar with from my time living and working in the UK. But now I wonder how many people still share Jacob’s viewpoint. Could it be that this antipathy to pretesting is uniquely British and perhaps outdated?

I just read an article in AdAge by Patrick Sarkissian with the provocative title, “Why Metrics Are Killing Creativity in Advertising.”  The basic point of the article was summed up in the subtitle: “When Marketing Decisions Are Based on Numbers, We Lose the Desire to Be Creative.” The author seems to assume that creativity applies only to ideas and not to numbers. If I’m reading him correctly, I believe he is wrong and that his clients are missing out.

Recently I had the opportunity to compare a number of management dashboards, and what they all had in common was an excess of metrics focused on past performance at the expense of measures that described future potential. That seems a strange way to manage a business, particularly if it is one that relies on the strength of its brands to turn a profit.

When I think of Africa, I think of a place that’s warm and sunny, and so if you’re like me, you may find it tough to think about marketing in Africa when much of the Northern Hemisphere is covered with snow. However, I would like to draw your attention to a new Millward Brown Point of View on marketing in Africa written by my colleague Matthew Angus. Matthew’s POV, titled “Brand Building in Africa in 2010: A Field Guide for the Final Frontier,” is an excellent read for anyone involved in marketing anywhere in the world.